


Baroque Moved You

by fujiidom



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, School Reunion, Texas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-28 11:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujiidom/pseuds/fujiidom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheldon and Penny get their high school reunion on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baroque Moved You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ammorgan21](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ammorgan21).



> Hopefully you can handle the sheer unadulterated trope-iness of this. It's like fish in a barrel once you get going.

.

  
“Penny, did you hear me? Do you want the last eggroll?”

Leonard waved his chopsticks around the air between them until Penny snapped to attention. She wordlessly snatched up the last of their dinner and dropped it into her take-out carton.

“Sorry, long day. I have to decide whether or not I want to chance a possible dead-end callback or work a six hour shift. Basically, electricity or hot water.”

Sheldon bristled, at this. “Do I need to loan you money, again? Once the others clear the area, I can check my secure storage locations and allocate some funds.”

He had already finished eating and was taking infrequent sips from his root beer bottle, as the group focused their attention on its only female member.

“No, I’m fine. I’ll end up going to work, I always do. I just like to take a lot of time mulling it over so I feel like less of a failure.”

“Ah, I see. Excellent coping mechanism!” They all glared at Sheldon.

Penny frowned at the half eaten eggroll before she set her carton down on the coffee table and slouched backwards in her seat. “Ignore my misery, please. I don’t want to talk or discuss or even think about it, honestly. Get back to whatever it is you were talking about.”

Howard’s eyes lit up and Penny was instantly reminded why they instituted Sheldon’s seating chart so strictly. Even from five feet away, she cringed away from the leer directed towards her. “I believe, Penny, that would be us talking about _Sheldon_ ’s misery.”

Penny rolled her head to the side where it rested atop the couch’s cushions and looked at Sheldon in commiseration. “You’re miserable, too? God, if you were a drinker or knew who Radiohead was, I’d invite you to Chez Penny for strawberry wine and _Kid A_ on repeat, later. Third showing this week!”

“Well. My schedule is certainly—“

“No, Howard.” Penny rolled her eyes at the anticipated outburst and then turned her attention back to a quiet Sheldon, beside her. “Really, though, what’s up? Work stuff? Science fiction inaccuracy stuff? Wil Wheaton back in town?”

Sheldon sighed, collected his things to dispose and rinse off, and headed over to the kitchen. He called back over his shoulder, “It’s nothing. Howard’s just being dramatic.”

“Nothing? Sheldon, I haven’t had to block anyone since that Disney princess tried to press charges.” At Penny’s horrified look, he backtracked and held up a hand. “I just wanted a picture with Ariel! Harmless! It’s not my fault I knew her real name. It’s a huge Facebook group, she’s an actress, and I thought it was an ice breaker.”

Raj grumbled beside her loud enough that she knew that clearly wasn’t the full story, but what with his inability to say two words to her she decided the subject was better dropped.

“So, Sheldon, it's Facebook drama? Ooh, you should catch me up. Facebook is like my theoretical physics!”

Sheldon wheeled around from where he’d been wandering around the kitchen and narrowed his eyes in Penny’s direction. “Since you are neither employed by Facebook nor have any contributing role in the company other than leaving tiny hearts and dinner plans underneath glorified scrapbook pages, I beg to differ. Greatly.”

“Jesus, Sheldon. I was offering to help, not to borrow your doctorates or something. Forget it.” Penny then intended to storm out, but that would be made ten times less dramatic if she was hobbling across the hall with one flip flop. She felt around underneath the sofa with her bare foot, frustrated, she hoped to at least make a speedy exit, if not a very intimidating one.

Leonard bit his lip for a few awkward seconds as Sheldon resumed cleaning the dishes and Penny flopped her left foot around on the carpet below like a fish on dry land.

“It’s just this Facebook thing…” The whole room seemed to snap back to life. They all turned to Leonard, simultaneously, as he spoke.

Sheldon turned the water off for a second time and rounded towards where his friend sat. “I told you, it’s nothing! This is _childish_!”

“A bunch of the guys Sheldon went to high school with—“

Sheldon interrupted. “ _Would’ve_ gone to high school with. _Would have_. I was working on my second doctorate by the time they were failing their SATs!”

“A bunch of the guys Sheldon _would’ve_ gone to high school with were leaving some obnoxious stuff on his wall. Which he promptly deleted. Then they moved to his message box. So he blocked them all. He’s been pissed off about it all week.”

“I have not!” Sheldon grumbled back.

Penny had given up on her shoe and turned her attention to Sheldon. “Well, they sound like jerks. Just ignore them, they’re jealous.”

Sheldon’s jaw ticked as he pulled his hands behind his back, calmly. “All obvious points that have already occurred to me many times over, of course. My current issue is more to do with my sister’s account, which is being spammed by these same people more than Wolowitz spams Miley Cyrus Fan Forums. Family is off-limits, they know this. I am having a hard time letting this happen without a say.”

“She’s eighteen, by the way!” Howard interjected, heatedly.

Penny rolled her eyes and looked back over at Sheldon. “Can’t she block them, too?”

“She doesn’t want to. She sees many of them on a regular basis and doing so might spark something more. It’s a disaster, really. I hope they’ll simply tire of this. It’s not grade school, so surely their resolve to focus on one person has lessened. I cannot comprehend this level of immaturity from people in their early to mid-thirties.”

“Says the guy with Batman sheets,” Penny countered, warmly. “I think you need to nuke them. Go at them with everything you’ve got. Screw with their heads so much that they won’t want to go near Facebook for the next year.”

“And how exactly do you propose to do that?” Sheldon gave her an unimpressed glare.

“Step aside, gentlemen.” Penny stood up and moved across the room to Sheldon’s desk.

“No one was in your way,” Howard mumbled at her as she passed.

“Penny, please don’t. You’ll only exacerbate the problem.” Sheldon followed her.

“You bet your ass I’ll exacerbate it. I’ll exacerbate it into dust.”

“I don’t think you know what exacerbate means.”

“I don’t think you know how to whip people up into such an enraged frenzy that they crumble in on themselves.”

The group stared at the back of her head with something akin to awe. “Let me put my password in…” Sheldon trailed off, quietly.

He bounced over to the computer and tapped the necessary keys quickly. Penny cracked her knuckles and started reading over the posts on Missy’s wall. “Guys, you can go read some books or do whatever it is you academics do. Leave this to the professionals.”

.

“Ugh, just respond. Respond, you moron. Respond!” Penny yelled, unattractively at the computer screen. It was well past midnight and she was barely able to keep her eyes open.

Behind her, Sheldon stirred from his place on the couch. He blinked and pulled the blanket off the couch to wrap around himself. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and walked over to where Penny was still hunched over the laptop. “What time is it?”

Penny started, a bit, at the sound of someone’s voice other than her own. “Almost two o’clock. I guess we’re old people, now, because usually this is when parties start and I’m like a zombie already. This asshole won’t reply and I’ve been sitting here refreshing for thirty minutes. What’s his problem?”

“Well, given the time difference he’s probably went to bed. You should, too. You look deranged in this lighting.” Sheldon squinted down at Penny and watched as the glow of the computer’s screen transformed her face to something ghoulish and evil looking as she glared up at him.

“Huskers never say die,” she mumbled and rested her chin on his desk as she hit refresh and watched as nothing changed onscreen still. She let out another frustrated moan.

“As do the highly esteemed Goonies, of course.” Sheldon itched at the back of his neck and pulled the blanket around him tighter. “Well, clearly you are using this situation to work through your own recent failures. Textbook scapegoating. But since it is too late to have a rational discussion about this with you, I’m going to wait until tomorrow when it will turn slightly less irrational, at least. Good night.”

Penny gave a tight smile up at him and laid her head sideways and stared at the computer until her eyes hurt.

She had gotten into it pretty good with the main instigator of most of the bullying. She was still logged on into Sheldon’s account so she had unblocked them all one by one and lured them back to Sheldon’s wall with a lot of threats and three syllable thesaurus-searched words. They hadn’t seen or spoken to him in over a decade, so it was hardly likely that they’d know she wasn’t actually him. It was kind of liberating to be given an acting job she could truly shine in, given how well she knew Sheldon’s angry, condescending side.

Before they’d left and gone to sleep, Leonard and Howard had both noted how impressively in-character she was. Howard had asked her to take part in his weekly role-playing chat and everything. Penny would’ve been thoroughly creeped out if she weren’t so surprisingly flattered. That was nearly three hours ago.

She’d only gotten one reply in the last hour and the fight was far from over. These people were just as ridiculous and relentless as described, but Penny had gotten this far and she wasn’t going to shut her eyes until she was sure they weren’t coming back for more.

Another half-hour went by. Her head lulled back and forth where it rested along her elbow.

And then she yelped, unexpectedly horrified, when the screen switched off to darkness as Sheldon’s system went on standby. She banged at the keyboard blearily, cursing as it took a second to register the activity.

His log-on screen popped up and she let out loud grumble at the computer’s prompting for a password. “Shit, shit, shit…” She tried a few obvious options: _theflash_ , _josswhedon_ , and _sciencerules_. Eventually she rolled her eyes at her attempts. This was Sheldon. Guessing his password would be like breaking into a bank. She was too tired for this crap.

Clicking back, she was able to reboot it and hope that it would somehow skip over the log-on page. She yawned into the back of her hand and rubbed her hands together for warmth. Just as she’d expected, there was another prompt for a password that she didn’t know and waking Sheldon up just to ask for it felt really stupid. Until she noticed the other option at the bottom right and almost jumped up and down with delight. She logged in as a Guest.

The welcome screen switched to a generic desktop and she grinned hazily at her brilliance. She clicked the internet icon and laid her head back down calmly as she typed Facebook into the web address bar. She logged onto her account and clicked back onto Sheldon’s wall. Still nothing posted.

She frowned. Well, at least she hadn’t missed anything.

She cracked her neck and shuffled around until she felt comfortable. Her resolve to stay awake was quickly fading and the part of her brain that kept reminding her that she’d worked eight hours straight today was forcing her not to fight it.

She hit refresh one last time and almost squealed again, there was a new message. A big one, too, with a link and a picture; one big dare, really. If they’d asked Sheldon he’d probably quit the game, but they weren’t asking Sheldon. They were asking Penny. Penny _never_ said no to dares. She _relished_ dares. She ran down the football field in her underwear, okay.

She smiled and called their bluff. Typing an all-caps YES in reply to the question. Sheldon would hate her for it, but whatever. Sometimes you just have to grab life by the horns, which is something you just can't quite do _online_.

All he’d need is a little coaching to become the snarky and aggressive Sheldon she’d just invented. What really mattered, she thought dimly as she drifted off to sleep, is that she’d gotten the final word.

Or so she’d thought.

.

She woke up to the sound of dishes being moved around in the guys’ kitchen and grimaced at the already notable crick in her shoulder. “I hate you,” she mumbled towards the source of the noise and hurled a stapler into the kitchen without looking. She heard it clatter after Sheldon gave a satisfyingly terrified squeak.

“I told you to go get some rest. Clearly you understand why,” Sheldon called back from where he was, out of eye shot.

Penny resigned herself to being awake and stretched out her limbs as she stood up. The blanket from the couch fell to the ground from where it had been nestled between her back and the computer chair. She frowned and looked over at Sheldon with a question in her gaze. He glanced over and rolled his eyes.

“If you’d woken up cold and tired, I’d probably have to go buy a new laptop instead of a stapler.”

Penny gave a small, sleepy grin as she picked the blanket up off the ground, shook it out and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“So, how did your quest go? Did you down the boss or do I have another lifetime full of unwarranted harassment to look forward to?” Sheldon popped a piece of toast down and went to retrieve the butter from inside the refrigerator.

Penny squeezed her eyes together and prepared herself for his inevitable freak-out. “Uh, about that…”

Sheldon turned around brusquely, setting the butter on the counter and approaching where Penny had slept with trepidation. His voice was low when he spoke. “What about it?”

It was early and Penny was searching through the best way to tell him what she’d agreed to on his behalf. She moved aside as he flitted over to the log in to his computer and his Facebook. He scrolled and clicked a few times and Penny bit her lip, looking around the room pretending to be distracted.

Sheldon gasped and scrolled and gasped again. “What. Did. You. _Do_?!”

“Look, I know you probably don’t want to go see them in person. But with a little fine tuning and…” Penny trailed off as she spared a glance at what Sheldon had scrolled down to onscreen. “And…” She pushed him aside and tilted the laptop monitor back some to better see the conversation.

Just below where she had answered that Sheldon would certainly be attending their reunion, logged in under her own name and not Sheldon, were no less than twenty questions and replies about who the “hot blonde was” and if they’d need to make Sheldon’s invitation a plus one. There was much mocking and talk of hired escorts for the rest of the thread. Penny had to look away.

Sheldon had pushed the chair back to the edge of the carpet where he sat stationary and dejected. She scrunched her face up at how horrible it all made her feel. Like kicking a puppy. Repeatedly.

“I’m going to fix this, Sheldon. I swear to god, I will. I don’t know what happened, I was half asleep and I just don’t know what happened. But I’ll get them back, we’ll get them back and they’ll leave you alone. I promise.” She restrained herself from doing more than patting his back reassuringly.

His head remained downturned as she stared at him helplessly. _Cornhuskers never say die_ , her mind interrupted. A surge of anger rushed through her and she turned back to the computer.

Sheldon’s head snapped up at the sound of her furious typing. She finished her rage-filled paragraph with a few choice curse words, clicked a dozen or so times, logged off, logged back on, and clicked around some more.

She turned to where Sheldon sat glaring at the computer with a mixture of resentment and resignment. She wasn’t positive if that was directed at her or the Texan scumbags that had been making both their lives a living hell over the past few days, but she had never been more amped for an acting job in all her career. “This is happening, okay. Consider it an early Christmas present, either from me to you or you to me, depending on how you look at it. Understood?”

Sheldon looked up at her with a spark in his eyes that made her confident that regardless of his feelings about her actions, she at least had him on her side.

She shut the laptop with a loud click just as Leonard stumbled out from the hallway, tying his bathrobe’s belt tighter around his waist. “Penny? What are you still doing here?” He squinted back and forth between the two of them, taking in their aggressive posture and serious business facial expressions. “Did I miss something?”

Penny crossed her arms challengingly and dived into character. “We’re engaged.”

The toaster went off, popping Sheldon’s toast up into the air along with several small plumes of smoke. It was completely charred.

.

“Stop fidgeting, they’re going to think you have a bomb or something.” Penny glared over at where Sheldon sat across from her.

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Please, reprimand me using more homeland security buzzwords, _please_.”

“I know you’re nervous.” She held a hand up as he tried to protest. “I get it, believe me. No one likes high school, but I’m guessing that skipping it altogether makes you especially uncool with the idea of going back.”

“I’m not nervous about that. I don’t care about those people at all. I care about showing up in Galveston with the woman my mother thinks is or was dating my roommate. If she finds out what we’re doing, she’ll rain down fire and brimstone on us both. We’ll probably have to go stay with Missy.”

“This is why I suggested a hotel room.” Penny pointed out.

Sheldon sighed, annoyed at her bringing the idea back up. “The reaction to _that_ would be even more catastrophic. Just don’t tell her about the lying or the fake engagement or the bullying. It’s a veritable buffet of things she’ll throw a fit over.”

“So I’m in town to what? See a Cowboys game? _That’s_ likely.”

“No, I need someone to help me catalog and collect the soil samples I need to bring back to Pasadena and test. You are in need of additional income and I am offering it to you. Just as my mother knows I did with Raj, being the highly charitable Christian son she raised.”

“You know I’d make a sarcastic comment about that, but you did honestly help us both out. So maybe she did raise you okay, after all.” Penny grinned as he shook his head in response, clearly frustrated by her very presence. “So what’s our game plan? I know you printed me out that itinerary, but we both know I didn’t read it.”

Sheldon rummaged through his bag for the paper in question, as their train continued to zoom towards the border of New Mexico and Texas. He found the neatly typed and printed schedule, laying it on the table between them and cleared his throat to read down the list. “Skipping the points we’ve already passed…  


  *  **5:00PM** – arrive in Houston  

  *  **5:25PM** – walk a block and a half to get our rental car
  *  **5:45PM** – leave for Galveston
  *  **6:05PM** – arrive in Galveston  

  *  **6:10PM** – bring our bags inside  

  *  **6:15PM** – greet my mother  

  *  **6:25PM** – help set the dinner table
  *  **6:30PM** – begrudgingly say grace  

  *  **6:32PM** – eat delicious home-cooked dinner…”

“Okay, okay. That’s getting a little too specific. I was talking about the time we’ll have to run lines, get ready, leave for the reunion.”

Sheldon hesitated for a moment before tucking the itinerary back into his knapsack. “Well, that’s not until Thursday. I also don’t think we’ll need to run any more lines. Just stick to the facts and notecards I wrote up for you and we’ll be fine.”

Penny pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t work that way, Sheldon. I need to practice it out loud. It’ll probably help you out, too.”

Sheldon looked around the half-empty train car and shrugged. “If you’re so set on the idea, we can do that now. I hardly think we’ll need more than a few hours of reflection to memorize the full spiel by heart. Or at least I won’t.”

Penny rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you’ve never had stage fright. What was I _thinking_?”

“That was in front of a room of a hundred or more of my peers, Penny. I think I’ll be okay around Tyler Glickman and his highly successful plumbing business.”

“Okay, but why don’t we at least go over the big stuff. Just so we’re sure we can tell them at the same time without tripping over each other’s words?”

Sheldon sighed, resigned and tapped his fingers impatiently on the table as he waited for Penny to begin.

“We met when I moved in next door to you and your friend Leonard, seven years ago. We bickered constantly and still do. Then one day, you were being particularly ridiculous about the spot where you sit or the food that I’d brought home and I just snapped and tried to shut you up by kissing you. You gave no reaction other than you pushing me away in horror and continuing your rant like nothing had happened. Cut to a month later where I’m still pissed that even the most sure fire way to distract a guy didn’t work on you and you’re oblivious to everything as usual. So, while we’re waiting in the car for Leonard to pick-up our pizza, I kiss you again. You push me away again, we stare at each other. Then I go in to kiss you a third time…”

“And I’m intrigued enough by your resilience to allow you to continue for longer than the five seconds I had before,” Sheldon interjected as he made a motion with his hand signaling his desire to speed along the story. “Leonard finds us, to borrow the colloquialism I’ve heard others refer to it as, _making out_ , and consequentially drops the pizza. We try to explain it to him, but seeing as we’re confused of what’s going on ourselves, there’s a great deal of rationalization and sputtering. Leonard concedes that he’s considered this inevitable for some time, although he’d preferred it relegated to his nightmares.”

Penny nodded and grinned. “And over time he comes to love us together because now he can be snarky about both of us at once without feeling like he’s bullying me. Plus you’re much less of a headache for him, when you’re busy pestering me twenty-four, seven.”

“But we don’t just launch into a relationship, correct? That’s not until card twelve…” Sheldon searched his bag for the bundle of index cards that he’d printed out earlier that week. He found them nestled in the bottom corner of the largest zippered pocket and flipped through to find the corresponding card.

“Yeah, that takes a lot of convincing. Technically you’d had a girlfriend already, sure, but you definitely weren’t interested in the “physical aspects” of a girlfriend before.” Penny’s eyebrows shot up at how true to Sheldon they’d kept his reactions.

“Yes, yes.” Sheldon followed along the typed points with his index finger until he caught up to where Penny had left off. “Baser urges are something I prided myself on being able to control, but you disrupted that. I couldn’t get the thought of kissing and touching you out of my head. The thought grew like a disease, eventually taking over both my waking thoughts as well as my dreams. I’d been undone and resented you for it."

“The Uhura to your Spock,” Penny pointed out. Trying to focus on the comedic side of things, considering how oddly unnerving it was to hear him speak about the thought of being with her driving him slowly insane or how appealing that thought was. The driving him insane part, _obviously_.

“Aside from witnessing the tragic death of my mother and either of us being space-traveling military officers, yes. That’s a workable analogy.”

“So then we continue with the making out and the slowly spending more time together. We have the unavoidable argument about your inability to express your feelings properly and admit that you like me or more than like me.”

Sheldon nodded. “I instinctively pick a fight with Howard over his continued innuendos and impolite words to you that we both correctly assume is over his jealousy and disbelief over our fledgling relationship. He asks why it’s any of my business and I say…”

“Because she’s my girlfriend, you Neanderthal. As well as a confident, intelligent woman who has neither the time nor the desire to hear your pathetic attempts at masking your own insecurities by trying to tear down those that are happy around you.”

Sheldon furrowed his eyebrows. “I don’t have the part about you being a confident or intelligent woman written down, here.”

Penny sneered. “Well, I’m going off-book. You’ll just have to run with it.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugged and looked back down to the cards. “After I say that, we both see ourselves as being part of an exclusive girlfriend/boyfriend relationship with one another. We have intercourse shortly thereafter…”

“Sex,” Penny interrupted. “I would not let you continue referring to us having sex as anything that clinical.”

“So long as you don’t refer to it as _making love_ , then we have a deal.” Sheldon raised a single brow and waited for an answer.

“Eww, yes. Deal.” Penny nodded, before she held up a finger and drew her bottom lip between her teeth. She knew the next part, but hearing it aloud might be kind of jarring. “You tell me you love me on Valentine’s Day after we have a massive fight about it.”

“You run crying to Leonard about how frustrating it is to be in a relationship with someone who can’t properly reciprocate your emotions. He points out…”

“Leonard _finds_ me crying,” Penny corrected.

Sheldon made a face and continued. “He points out the irony of the situation, given your own shared history. You calm down and resolve yourself to the fact that maybe you and I aren’t compatible for the long-term.”

“Which is devastating,” Penny added.

“Which is devastating, yes. But, unbeknownst to you, Leonard tells me these reservations and explains what’s to be expected from an adult relationship similar to yours and mine. I think it over and weighing my options and general attachment to you…”

“General love for me,” Penny asserted, eyes narrowed.

“Well, that’s the point. I tell you I love you, just as I love many things. I just don’t find my affection compelling enough to walk around blurting it out. Some things simply go without saying.”

Penny tried not to smile at that, but she couldn’t fight the half-grin that overtook her face. “This is exactly why I would’ve had an issue with this, by the way. You don’t just assume the other person knows you love them.”

“Why? Clearly I am fond of anyone that I don’t openly condemn or cut out of my life.”

“Well, for one, you condemn just about everyone. Secondly, aww, does that mean you’re fond of me since you haven’t revoked my dinner pass and stopped talking to me? Let me go braid a friendship bracelet.” She laughed.

“So, this, right now…” He pointed between them both and creased his eyebrows. “This is what we would’ve fought over? You need me to lie to you about how _I_ feel in order to make _yourself_ feel better?”

“No, I need you to admit that you like me! That you’re in love with me and it’s not because you’ve gotten used to our relationship and don’t want things to change. I mean, yes, that’s part of it. You need to understand that the things you’re feeling about me, you feel because you’re in love with me.”

“No, I’m not,” Sheldon backtracked, looking confused.

“Not you! The other Sheldon!”

“Oh, right, right. I love you. You make my brain chemistry react pleasantly and…” He glanced at the notecards for a beat before he met her eyes again. “…My earlobes tingle at the ends. Sometimes, I hate this feeling, but it’s there. Ergo, I have feelings for you. Positive and negative, they exist.”

“I kiss you and we temporarily make up,” Penny agreed. “Until we fight about something else next week and it’s back to one of us getting the other to forgive them.”

“So, we fight a lot? Isn’t that the sign of an unhappy marriage? Or, in our case, potential marriage?” Sheldon set his notecards aside and threaded his fingers together on the table.

“Oh, honey, no. In fact, I’ve ended relationships based on how little we fought. It shouldn’t be really intense and heartbreaking every round, but if we bicker all the time then that’s a good thing. We won’t get bored or distracted.”

“Well, then. Objectively speaking we are indeed believable candidates for marriage. We fight all the time!” Sheldon beamed and gave a pleased frown.

Penny laughed and shook her head. “I’ve actually been asked if we were dating before. I’m pretty sure that’s why.”

“This may go smoother than I anticipated.” He scratched his head. “The only thing we have to talk about it the proposal.”

“Yeah, you take me to the beach, right?”

“I actually re-wrote that scene. I don’t go to beaches of my own volition. Instead, I chose this…” He handed the index card in question across the table waited for Penny to read what was written. “Simple and symbolic, I think it’s more the kind of story that will play to people’s emotions and make them jealous of our relationship.”

“Oh, Sheldon, this is _precious_. Where are you? Lurking in the shadows?” Penny gave a lop-sided grin as she looked up from the notecard.

“I leave the ring box on my spot, which you take your time staring at and eventually impulsively opening. As predicted. Then I enter from the hallway, where I was waiting for you to arrive, you obviously accept, we celebrate, we eat the candlelight dinner before it gets cold, and then we celebrate in a more primal fashion.”

Penny shook her head, but couldn’t help from laugh. “It’s cheesy, but it’s Sheldon cheesy. It’s perfect.”

“Oh, speaking of the ring.” Sheldon shuffled around his bag and pulled out a small Ziploc with a diamond ring inside. “Here, I hope your fingers fit it. We’ll have to get it resized before we go to the reunion, otherwise.”

Penny’s breath caught and she opened her hand out for him to place it in. It was beautiful and old-looking and massive, she didn’t know what to say.

“It was my Meemaw’s, so be careful with it. She gave it to me in case I should ever choose to wed. I told her that was a fairly futile wish, but she wanted to pass it to me in case anything happened to her and my brother or sister tried to claim it as theirs. I think it will be suitable.”

“ _Suitable_ ,” Penny gasped. “Sheldon, I can’t wear this. This is a family heirloom and it is _way_ too nice… it’s probably worth thousands.”

“If I were to make someone my fiancée, they would wear that ring. I haven’t had its worth estimated lately, but regardless, Meemaw would want you to wear it. She loves pranks like this. She’s the one who came up with the word bazinga.”

Penny huffed. “Remind me to write her a long angry letter about that later.” She rolled the ring around in her hand and primly slipped it around her ring finger. It took a little wiggling to get it over her knuckle, but once it was on, it fit comfortably and snugly. “ _Wow_.”

Sheldon reached across the table to grab the card Penny had taken earlier. He flattened it between them and pointed towards one of the bottom lines. “I believe the written answer is: ‘Yes, Sheldon. I will marry you.’”

.

They explained everything to Missy, the next day, over a drink. “Of coffee!” Penny had added at Mrs. Cooper’s angry eyebrow raise.

She was highly skeptical and more than a little unsure that they’d even be allowed in since neither graduated high school with her. But she’d seen Sheldon scheme and she’d read through what she now knew was Penny masquerading as her twin brother on Facebook. They were clearly determined to prove that the “hot blonde” was indeed Sheldon’s fiancée and he was better off than every single person in their graduating class.

Missy and Sheldon had very different ideas of what “better off” meant, but she had to admit that while he was a total spaz, he definitely was successful. About as successful as someone his age could be, short of starting an internet company or starring in movies. His interest merely laid elsewhere and in his field, there were few others that had been published so frequently and awarded so often. So, objectively, she conceded that he probably had a point.

“I just don’t know how y’all plan on sellin' it,” Missy concluded. She shook her iced coffee around and sipped at what was left at the bottom of her cup.

“I’m not sure what you mean? We just told you.” Penny frowned, since they had just gone through the same spiel as they had on their train ride and it was about as thorough and convincing as they’d been able to plan out.

“It’s just…” Missy bit her lip and folded her hands together in a way that reminded Penny of the fact that she was Sheldon’s twin and not just another relative. “Sheldon is great with the intricate lies, I’ll give you that. He once convinced me that I was adopted for a whole month when we were younger. There was paperwork and everything.”

“DNA tests,” Sheldon corrected. “And in my defense, it was mostly just wishful thinking on my part.”

“I love you, too.” Missy grinned. She shook her head and continued her earlier thought. “He’s great at the lyin’ and the fabricatin’ and the crazy stories, sure. But the idea of you walking around huggin’ and kissin’ and holdin’ hands? I just don’t see it.”

Penny and Sheldon looked back and forth between each other in horror. Penny waved her hands trying to halt the mental image as best she could before it overwhelmed her subconscious. “I don’t think anyone said anything about hugging or kissing or hand holding. Like, even kind of.”

Sheldon shook his head in agreement, vigorously. “No, they didn’t.” He thumbed through the index cards that had been set aside on the small coffee bar’s table. “It’s definitely not in any of my notes.”

Missy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and every engaged couple I know walks around like they’re afraid of catchin’ a disease from the other one.”

Sheldon made a face. “Well, then I don’t see the problem. We’ll fit right in!”

Penny looked down and nervously eyed the patterns on the tiled floor below. “That was sarcasm, Sheldon.” She took her head in her hands and exhaled a deep breath. “She’s totally right, though. This is our Catch-22.”

They all sat in silence for a few minutes before Penny flinched and reached across the table to take Sheldon’s hand in her own.

He recoiled for a moment, but her rodeo instincts helped her grab it before he pulled it back too far out of reach. After a few seconds of hesitation, they both watched as he physically calmed his initial reaction and relaxed his hand in her grip.

Missy stared with a lop-sided smile as Penny gently flipped her slightly younger brother’s hand and intertwined their fingers together.

Penny looked ready to pounce. “We’re gonna destroy them.”

Missy laughed, dark and serious. “Yee haw.”

.

Penny was putting the finishing touches on her hair, when Sheldon emerged from his bedroom. With his mother out at her weekly bridge game/prayer circle, they had the house to themselves to get ready and leave without explanation at why they were so overdressed for any of the local restaurants and bars.

Sheldon was wearing the suit she’d bought him half a decade ago. It wasn’t necessarily cutting edge, but a nice black suit was a nice black suit. Penny found it ridiculous how some simple evening wear could make someone look so good and so human.

Sheldon watched as she finished unraveling the curlers in her hair and fluffing them out to fall more naturally against her shoulders. His gaze broke every so often as he glanced at his watch to check their schedule against the time.

Penny slipped her heels on and began doing a final touch up to her eye make-up and blush. She caught his eyes when he’d finished checking his watch for the thirteenth time, in the mirror she was using to get ready. “You know, most guys would tell me I look stunning. Because, not to be obnoxious, but I do.”

Her dress was shiny and tight, but demure enough that the words “escort” and “pricey” weren’t going to come up any more than they normally would, considering she had Sheldon as a date. The deep plum shade of purple popped well against the darkness of his suit and his tie was close enough in color that it might have been bought to match. Objectively, Penny had to admit, they looked the part.

Sheldon crossed his arms and gave her a surely smirk in return. “You look stunning.”

“Wow, that was almost—”

“Can we go, now?” Sheldon finished.

“There it is.” Penny smiled, warmly.

.

 _Foolish Games_ blasted from the rented DJ’s stereo loud enough to be heard from the parking lot, when Sheldon and Penny finally arrived at the high school.

“Now, you haven’t seen these people in twenty years. The fact that you don’t have a beer gut, alone, should be enough to make them feel awful about themselves.” Penny juggled her clutch around as she locked the rental car.

“I’m not concerned about how people look, Penny. I just want them to stop with the cyber bullying. It’s pedestrian and boring and it clogs my inbox with notifications I don’t care about.”

“I’m telling you, this will do it. If they see you as this successful, handsome guy who lives in California and has a beautiful, talented, intelligent girlfriend—”

“Why do you get more descriptors than I do?”

Penny fixed him with a stern look and continued, “—if they see you that way, they’ll stop. It’s one thing to bully someone you’re secretly jealous of if they _appear_ lamer then you are. But if you show up, are obviously successful, in a committed relationship, then them bullying you _looks_ jealous and petty. They’ll want to save face and drop the whole thing altogether. Trust me.”

“So help me, I do.” Sheldon opened the door and lead the way towards where the gym was located.

.

After they’d talked their way into getting name tags and entrance to the gym, there was a lot of standing around. Since Sheldon hadn’t actually gone to high school with anyone there, he knew next to no one and didn’t recognize the rest.

“God, is this another Jewel song? Did Jewel go to your high school or something?”

“Who is Jewel?” Sheldon asked, so earnestly that Penny slapped a hand to her forehead.

“Jewel is a folk singer who grew up in Alaska. So, that’d be a no. The song currently playin', on the other hand, is by Shawn Colvin.” Missy interjected, having snuck up on the two of them just long enough to hear the end of Penny’s random comments about their surroundings.

“Missy! Hi, oh, hi!” They hugged and Sheldon gave an awkward nod in his sister’s direction. “We’re so bored, we’re just standing here. I don’t know what the jerks look like and no one’s come up to us, yet. So we were just biding our time making fun of the DJ. Same old, same old.”

“Oh, wow. Okay, well, everyone’s talkin' about you. They can’t believe Sheldon’s here and they can’t believe you’re not a hooker.”

“Hey, my dress is way too nice for that!” Penny gave a sardonic glare.

“That’s what I keep tellin’ them! Sheldon brought you home for the holidays and you guys wanted to tag along is the actual story I’ve been hawkin’ and I think most people believe me. Tyler and his other jerk friends are over at The Loading Dock, pre-gamin' apparently. They’ll be here soon, I think.”

Penny grimaced. “The loading dock?”

“It’s a bar, in town. They’re there every night once Fuddruckers closes.” She gave a deep sigh and took a sip of the drink in her hand. “Thank god, or else they’d probably wanna come home with me or somethin’ equally gross.”

There was a loud bang from across the room as the gymnasium doors knocked against the walls after being kicked open. Sheldon gulped as they seemed to deliberately search out the crowd before heading in his direction.

Penny sidled up against him and nudged at his arm pointedly until he draped it haphazardly around her shoulders. She stood up on her tiptoes, pecked a soft kiss on his cheek.

She rested her head just above his right shoulder and whispered, “Showtime.”

.

“Oh shit, Cooper. Is that really you?” Tyler Glickman all but slurred as he ambled over to where Penny and Sheldon were standing together. “I can’t believe you showed up.”

Sheldon stood stock-still and looked completely disgusted at the other man’s presence. Penny had to agree, since she could smell the cheap liquor from where she was standing two feet away. “It’d be impolite not to accept your invitation. I’d been meaning to spend a holiday visiting my family, anyway.”

Missy nodded from where she stood and mirrored Sheldon both in height and severity of her stance.

“And hello, Prettier Cooper. It’s nice to see you out of the uniform,” Tyler added crudely, turning to acknowledge her briefly.

Penny couldn’t stand all the posturing and let out a sharp laugh. “So you think he’s pretty, too? Well, that’s literally _one_ thing we agree on.”

The other men who had come in with Tyler snickered softly before being scolded with a harsh look from their ringleader. Tyler sneered at her and crossed his arms. “You must be the hot blonde in all of Cooper’s Facebook pictures. Do you guys play dress up in the bedroom, too? Or is that just for special events?”

“Both,” Penny said, seriously. The group looked genuinely stunned for a moment, not anticipating an answer. “So, how was The Loading Dock? I’ve got a movie coming up where I play the sister of a creepy, alcoholic redneck who’s halfway towards liver cancer and a gut so big people might mistake him for a pregnant woman if he shaves. I’d love to do a character study right at the source!”

“You’re an actress?” Tyler asked, absently, too put off by her insults to gather much more from what she’d said.

“I’d have to be! Who else would want to hang around someone that’s trolling Facebook like a pre-teen and has got enough stains on his boots to make a convincing homeless person? That’s the stuff Oscars are made of!”

Tyler’s face was contorted with anger, but he was still unable to do much beyond mumble incoherently at Penny’s words.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you actually homeless? I didn’t mean to offend you. In fact, Sheldon, get out your wallet.” Sheldon, so caught up in their back and forth, actually felt around his pocket for his wallet. Penny whispered, mock-conspiratorially to Tyler and his friends, “He’s a theoretical physicist, we live comfortably, y’know?” Sheldon opened his wallet towards Penny, who grabbed a ten from inside and made a show of tucking it in the well-worn pocket on Tyler’s beaten up blazer. “We always give what we can.”

Tyler looked back and forth between the two of them, in a rage. “Whatever. Have a nice life, geek. Your girlfriend’s a total bitch.”

Sheldon grinned and called out proudly at the other man’s retreating form. “She’s my fiancée, actually!”

Penny held up her hand and wiggled her fingers so that the large, expensive diamond glittered in the dim light of the room. Once she’d gotten Tyler and nearly everyone, at that point, to look over, she lowered all but her middle finger.

Sheldon pulled her back against his side, ecstatic, as Tyler disappeared into the crowd.

.

“That was—”

“I know.”

“It was just—”

“I know, we totally _Romy and Michele_ 'd his ass.”

Penny felt like she could do laps around the darkened track, off in the distance. Missy had stayed behind since she had reason to other than humiliating Tyler Glickman and friends in front of their graduating class.

They buckled their seatbelts and the car peeled out of the parking lot noisily.

“I honestly want to take you around to all the people who’ve made my life unpleasant over the years and just reenact that, again and again. There are a lot of them. But it would never get old.” Sheldon rubbed his hands, energetically, along his suit-covered kneecaps.

“Hello, _actress_. If they were paying gigs, I’d be all over that.”

Sheldon turned to consider her, while they were stopped at a red light. “How much would you charge?”

Penny intended to say something sarcastic or funny, but when she looked at the expression on his face all her one-liners vanished. “Aww, honey. I wouldn’t charge you, I was just kidding.”

Sheldon nodded, happily.

“And hey, we didn’t even have to kiss! Or tell our life story. All that worrying was for nothing!”

Sheldon seemed to be still lost in thought, clearly taken with the idea of revisiting all his old bullies. It pained Penny’s heart a little to know that recalling them all took a bit of thinking.

She waited a beat before reaching over and lacing their hands together. Although he didn’t protest, Sheldon looked over with a slightly confused look on his face.

Penny grinned. “For the record, even though I think you’re an incredibly difficult person to be around half of the time, you’re intimidating enough on your own. Anybody who bullied you like that already got what they deserved when you won your millionth award and got to meet Edward James Olmos.”

Sheldon looked away for a second, like he was closing the filing cabinet of names his mind had been running through a moment before. Just before the light turned green and their hands broke apart, Penny would’ve sworn that he’d tightened his grip.

.

They’d been back in Pasadena for barely an hour when Penny gave up pacing and walked across the hall, straight through the door to 4A.

Sheldon glanced up from his computer for just long enough to look shocked before Penny crossed the distance between them and pulled his face into a kiss. After a few seconds, she pulled back and sighed, while Sheldon continued to stare up at her with a blank expression.

“I’m method, sorry. I needed to get that out of my system.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Sheldon pointed out.

Penny’s mouth dropped for a moment, before she leaned back down and kissed Sheldon thoroughly. After a few minutes, Penny nudged her way onto his lap and they precariously rocked back and forth as the computer chair shifted under their weight.

Between the breaks in kissing they took to take gasps of air, Sheldon smiled. “Yee haw.”

.

When they visited Texas again, years later, Penny still wore his ring.


End file.
